There are several ways to create a Cipher instance. Generally, a Cipher algorithm is categorized by its name, the key length in bits and the cipher mode to be used. The most generic way to create a Cipher is the following

cipher = OpenSSL::Cipher.new('<name>-<key length>-<mode>')

That is, a string consisting of the hyphenated concatenation of the individual components name, key length and mode. Either all uppercase or all lowercase strings may be used, for example:

cipher = OpenSSL::Cipher.new('AES-128-CBC')

For each algorithm supported, there is a class defined under the Cipher class that goes by the name of the cipher, e.g. to obtain an instance of AES, you could also use

Encryption and decryption are often very similar operations for symmetric algorithms, this is reflected by not having to choose different classes for either operation, both can be done using the same class. Still, after obtaining a Cipher instance, we need to tell the instance what it is that we intend to do with it, so we need to call either

cipher.encrypt

or

cipher.decrypt

on the Cipher instance. This should be the first call after creating the instance, otherwise configuration that has already been set could get lost in the process.

Symmetric encryption requires a key that is the same for the encrypting and for the decrypting party and after initial key establishment should be kept as private information. There are a lot of ways to create insecure keys, the most notable is to simply take a password as the key without processing the password further. A simple and secure way to create a key for a particular Cipher is

The cipher modes CBC, CFB, OFB and CTR all need an “initialization vector”, or short, IV. ECB mode is the only mode that does not require an IV, but there is almost no legitimate use case for this mode because of the fact that it does not sufficiently hide plaintext patterns. Therefore

You should never use ECB mode unless you are absolutely sure that you absolutely need it

Because of this, you will end up with a mode that explicitly requires an IV in any case. Although the IV can be seen as public information, i.e. it may be transmitted in public once generated, it should still stay unpredictable to prevent certain kinds of attacks. Therefore, ideally

Although the key is generally a random value, too, it is a bad choice as an IV. There are elaborate ways how an attacker can take advantage of such an IV. As a general rule of thumb, exposing the key directly or indirectly should be avoided at all cost and exceptions only be made with good reason.

ECB (which should not be used) and CBC are both block-based modes. This means that unlike for the other streaming-based modes, they operate on fixed-size blocks of data, and therefore they require a “finalization” step to produce or correctly decrypt the last block of data by appropriately handling some form of padding. Therefore it is essential to add the output of OpenSSL::Cipher#final to your encryption/decryption buffer or you will end up with decryption errors or truncated data.

Although this is not really necessary for streaming-mode ciphers, it is still recommended to apply the same pattern of adding the output of Cipher#final there as well - it also enables you to switch between modes more easily in the future.

If the OpenSSL version used supports it, an Authenticated Encryption mode (such as GCM or CCM) should always be preferred over any unauthenticated mode. Currently, OpenSSL supports AE only in combination with Associated Data (AEAD) where additional associated data is included in the encryption process to compute a tag at the end of the encryption. This tag will also be used in the decryption process and by verifying its validity, the authenticity of a given ciphertext is established.

This is superior to unauthenticated modes in that it allows to detect if somebody effectively changed the ciphertext after it had been encrypted. This prevents malicious modifications of the ciphertext that could otherwise be exploited to modify ciphertexts in ways beneficial to potential attackers.

An associated data is used where there is additional information, such as headers or some metadata, that must be also authenticated but not necessarily need to be encrypted. If no associated data is needed for encryption and later decryption, the OpenSSL library still requires a value to be set - “” may be used in case none is available.

An example using the GCM (Galois/Counter Mode). You have 16 bytes key, 12 bytes (96 bits) nonce and the associated data auth_data. Be sure not to reuse the key and nonce pair. Reusing an nonce ruins the security guarantees of GCM mode.

Now you are the receiver. You know the key and have received nonce, auth_data, encrypted and tag through an untrusted network. Note that GCM accepts an arbitrary length tag between 1 and 16 bytes. You may additionally need to check that the received tag has the correct length, or you allow attackers to forge a valid single byte tag for the tampered ciphertext with a probability of 1/256.

Public Instance Methods

auth_data = string → string
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Sets the cipher's additional authenticated data. This field must be set when using AEAD cipher modes such as GCM or CCM. If no associated data shall be used, this method must still be called with a value of “”. The contents of this field should be non-sensitive data which will be added to the ciphertext to generate the authentication tag which validates the contents of the ciphertext.

Gets the authentication tag generated by Authenticated Encryption Cipher modes (GCM for example). This tag may be stored along with the ciphertext, then set on the decryption cipher to authenticate the contents of the ciphertext against changes. If the optional integer parameter tag_len is given, the returned tag will be tag_len bytes long. If the parameter is omitted, the default length of 16 bytes or the length previously set by auth_tag_len= will be used. For maximum security, the longest possible should be chosen.

Sets the authentication tag to verify the integrity of the ciphertext. This can be called only when the cipher supports AE. The tag must be set after calling Cipher#decrypt, Cipher#key= and Cipher#iv=, but before calling Cipher#final. After all decryption is performed, the tag is verified automatically in the call to Cipher#final.

For OCB mode, the tag length must be supplied with auth_tag_len= beforehand.

Returns the remaining data held in the cipher object. Further calls to Cipher#update or Cipher#final will return garbage. This call should always be made as the last call of an encryption or decryption operation, after having fed the entire plaintext or ciphertext to the Cipher instance.

If an authenticated cipher was used, a CipherError is raised if the tag could not be authenticated successfully. Only call this method after setting the authentication tag and passing the entire contents of the ciphertext into the cipher.

Sets the cipher IV. Please note that since you should never be using ECB mode, an IV is always explicitly required and should be set prior to encryption. The IV itself can be safely transmitted in public, but it should be unpredictable to prevent certain kinds of attacks. You may use Cipher#random_iv to create a secure random IV.

Sets the cipher key. To generate a key, you should either use a secure random byte string or, if the key is to be derived from a password, you should rely on PBKDF2 functionality provided by OpenSSL::PKCS5. To generate a secure random-based key, Cipher#random_key may be used.

Enables or disables padding. By default encryption operations are padded using standard block padding and the padding is checked and removed when decrypting. If the pad parameter is zero then no padding is performed, the total amount of data encrypted or decrypted must then be a multiple of the block size or an error will occur.

WARNING: This method is only PKCS5 v1.5 compliant when using RC2, RC4-40, or DES with MD5 or SHA1. Using anything else (like AES) will generate the key/iv using an OpenSSL specific method. This method is deprecated and should no longer be used. Use a PKCS5 v2 key generation method from OpenSSL::PKCS5 instead.

Encrypts data in a streaming fashion. Hand consecutive blocks of data to the update method in order to encrypt it. Returns the encrypted data chunk. When done, the output of Cipher#final should be additionally added to the result.

If buffer is given, the encryption/decryption result will be written to it. buffer will be resized automatically.